Method and system for data structure creation, organization and searching using basic atomic units of information

ABSTRACT

A computer-implemented method for organizing data using basic atomic units of information includes generating an object of interest (OI) comprising an OI name and an OI description. The OI is a basic atomic unit of information. The OI comprises an audience and data associated with the OI is searchable. The method includes assigning one or more characteristics to the OI. The one or more characteristics of the OI are searchable. A first OI is linked with one or more second OIs having at least one overlapping audience or characteristic. The second OI is accessible by a link displayed in the first OI. The first OI is displayed in a visual format that is accessible to a plurality of users.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/211,143, filed on Mar. 14, 2014, which claims priority from U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/785,562, filed Mar. 14, 2013, theentire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to a method and system for data structurecreation, organization and searching using basic atomic units ofinformation over a networked environment.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure relates to a system and method for creating,organizing and searching a data structure using basic atomic units ofinformation.

In embodiments, basic atomic units of information are defined andreferred to as “objects of interest (OIs).”

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various illustrative embodiments of the present disclosure are describedherein with reference to the drawing, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a diagram representing a conceptual organization of the methodand system described herein according to exemplary embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 is a screen shot of an initial screen visible to a user accordingto exemplary embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a screen shot of a listings screen visible to a user accordingto exemplary embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a computer system for implementing a method according to anexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference, to FIGS. 1-3. The application is founded on a fewfundamental objects. They are Object of Interest (“OI”), Characteristic,and Scope.

With reference, to FIG. 1. Scope is the most fundamental object—it mustbe associated with every object above it in the pyramid. OIs andCharacteristics are meaningless without their respective Scopes. A moreuser friendly term Audience has the same meaning as term Scope, and maybe used to describe user oriented instances such as examples, and screenshots. The terms Audience and Scope may be used interchangeably herein.

With reference, to FIG. 1. Scope of an object defines how an object“thinks” of itself, and that's how other entities view such object. Thisis a traditional understanding of scope. Every object must have a Scope.

With reference, to FIG. 1. External Scope defines how an object “looks”at other objects—this is an external view at other objects. An objectmay have more than one External Scope. However, only one External Scopecan be used at a time. Whatever External Scope is used at a given pointof time is called an Active (External) Scope. External Scope may or maynot be associated with an object.

With reference, to FIG. 1. Characteristic is the next higher levelobject. Although not mandatory, it can be associated with any OI.Applying characteristics to OIs allows to describe their certainqualities and search by such additional criteria, for example, theirrespective characteristics. It's worth pointing out that only thosecharacteristics can be assigned to OIs which have Scopes that aresimilar to those of OIs. There are two types of characteristics: systemcharacteristics—used by the application itself and not visible to users,and non-system characteristics—defined by users and visible to users.

With reference, to FIG. 1. Object of Interest (OI) is a dynamic objectwhich consists of a number of Components whose Behavior can bedifferent.

With reference, to FIG. 1. Other derived objects can be modeled byadjusting the use of OI Components and their Behavior. They are PublicOIs, Private OIs, Listings, and Users.

Scope

Scope is defined as the combination of the following components:Geography, Language, Age, and Gender. It should be obvious to a userwhat the scope is by enabling the user to view the scope within thecontext of the displayed information.

Two different scopes are considered similar if they intersect, i.e. havecommon partial Geography, Language, Age, and Gender.

Geographic Area

Geographic Areas indicate associated geographic areas for a givenobject. They are saved by the application as polygons. All commonlyreferred to geographic areas such as zip codes, neighborhoods, metroareas, counties, states, provinces, countries, continents, and others aswell as user defined polygons, points, or circles are converted to theirrespective polygons. We provide an initial set of widely recognizedgeographic areas because many users will want to use those instead ofdefining their own. The application will rely on existing mappinginterfaces (e.g., Google maps or a similar provider) in order to bringthe maps on the screen, and select geographic areas as polygons.

Languages

Languages indicate associated languages for a given object. It does nothave direct relationship with the actual language in which an object andits associated information is expressed. It is simply an attributeassigned to an object as a matter of defining its scope. Most if not allknown languages should be allowed. Multiple languages can be assigned.We will limit initial implementation to Latin family of languagesbecause they all use similar alphabet. The application should adjust allrelated text, explanations, messages, etc to be expressed in thelanguage any given user selects as their primary language.

Age Ranges

Age Ranges indicate associated ages for a given object. A single agerange can be expressed in fractional ages (e.g. 20.000-21.500). Bothlowest and highest ages are inclusive. If there is a need to exclude oneof the ranges its value should be incremented (for the lowest range) ordecremented (for the highest range) by the value which corresponds toone day, i.e. 1/365=0.00274. For example, if the range above needs to beall exclusive, it will be adjusted as all inclusive range of20.003-21.497. For display purposes, the range should be displayedwithout adjustments, i.e. as 20-20.5 as it was entered—while some sortof ‘inclusive’ or ‘exclusive’ indication should be used to make it clearto a user.

As a default behavior, the application may be inclusive of the lowestrange value while being exclusive of the highest range value. However,the application should allow for any selection of inclusion/exclusionfor either of the range lowest/highest values.

A specific age is described as an all inclusive range where lowest andhighest values are the same.

An open ended age range such as “above 30” is described as 30.0-1000. Anopen ended age range under 20 is described as 0-20.

Genders

Genders represent associated genders for a given object. To clarify,gender of humans is represented by body (male or female) and personality(male or female). Therefore, true gender is determined by thecombination of body and personality as follows: Mm, Ff, Mf, and Fm.Because the first two classifications define the same body andpersonality they can be shortened, and the resulting list will look asfollows: M, F, Mf, and Fm. The system and method according to exemplaryembodiments of the present invention is flexible to accommodate anydesired variation of gender for an object.

Characteristics

An OI, a Listing, and even a User may optionally be described by one ormore formal Characteristics which are uniquely identified by thecombination of Characteristic Name and its respective Scope. SystemCharacteristics are used by the application itself. Users can never viewSystem Characteristics. However, all characteristics may be searchable.

Characteristic name. For example, ‘Cloth Color’, ‘Suite Size’, ‘WorkingHours’, etc. The application recommends, but not enforces capitalizationrules to have the first letter in uppercase while the rest in lowercase.

Characteristic type—how this characteristic is described. The followingbasic types are allowed. Basic types are used to create the actualcharacteristics.

A single numeric value with optional unit of measurement. For example,product/service PRICE with unit of measurement “dollar”. FURNITUREDIMENSION in inches.

A single text value. For example, BRIDE'S NAME is “Jennifer Norton”, JOBPOSITION is “Store Manager”.

A list of sequential numeric values with optional unit of measurement.The values are specified in a certain order, and the search for valuescan be done by indicating not only a specific value but also by a rangeof values. For example, a suit SIZE can be “34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46,48” with unit of measurement “inch”, so someone can look for a suitwithin a range of let's say sizes “34”-“38”.

A list of sequential text values with optional unit of measurement.Similar to above. For example, picture frame sizes can be “5×7”, “7×9”,“11×13”, “14×17”, “19×26” with the unit of measurement “inch”, sosomeone can look for frames let's say within sizes “7×9”-“14×17”.

A list of random numeric values with optional unit of measurement. Thevalues do not have specific order. For example, COLOR CODES can be “21,14, 79, 125”, etc.

A list of random text values with optional unit of measurement. Thevalues do not have any specific order. For example, a jacket COLOR canbe “RED”, “BLUE”, “WHITE”, or “YELLOW”. A certain product MATERIAL canbe “WOOD”, “METAL”, or “PLASTIC”.

A list of numeric ranges with optional unit of measurement. E.g. thelength of a product can be anywhere within “40-60 inches”, the durationof service can be within “1.5-3 hours”, the working hours can be within“9 am-1 pm” and “2 pm-7 pm”.

Managing characteristics is done as follows. Any user is free to createa new characteristic or add values to the existing characteristic, anduse it immediately by assigning it to an OI, a Listing or to himself asa User. This initial approach greatly simplifies the use ofcharacteristics, however may create a bit of a chaos. Alternatively,every new characteristic may need to be approved by an automated processand/or devoted personnel.

Objects of Interest

With reference to FIGS. 1-3 an Object of Interest (OI) may consist ofthe following components:

Name. An OI Name may have a maximum length of 120 characters. Allprintable characters are allowed in OI Name. Whenever an OI is supplied,both leading and trailing spaces are removed. Multiple spaces inside OIname are left alone. OI Name uniqueness is not case sensitive, i.e.every OI Name converted to upper case must be unique among all other OInames converted to upper case. For instance, OI names “Italian Cooking”,“italian cooking”, and “ITALIAN COOKING” would all be consideredidentical. For display purposes every OI is displayed as it was entered.

Status is the latest update for an OI and may be displayed as arelatively short block of text.

Payment Email. This email is used when handling payments.

Intent indicates the purpose of an OI as follows: Informational (provideinformation); Buy (OI wants to get something and give money in exchangefor that), Sell (OI wants to give something and get money in exchangefor that), Trade (OI wants to get something and give something besidesmoney in exchange for that), Looking for something (OI wants to getsomething which does not involve clearly defined exchange), OfferingSomething (OI wants to give something which does not involve clearlydefined exchange), Alert (OI wants to alert others regarding something).

Thumbnail. This is a small picture shown when OI is displayed in alimited space.

Rating Poll is a system generated poll for every new OI in the system.It is always a Privacy Flexible poll as explained in this document.Whenever a group of OIs is viewed, the OIs are always sorted by the bestrating first, and the rating is shown next to OI names.

Forum. This is a discussion forum consisting of posts or polls submittedby users. Posts may have replies by other users. A post and a reply maycontain text and graphics.

Related Posts. Selected individual posts with their respective replies.

Related Polls. Selected individual polls.

Related Websites. Includes thumbnail, link (to the website), and briefdescription.

Related Pictures. Includes thumbnail, link (to the picture), and briefdescription.

Related Videos. Includes a thumbnail, link (to the video), and briefdescription.

Related Documents. Includes a thumbnail, link (to the document), and abrief description.

Related Audio. Includes a thumbnail, link (to the audio), and a briefdescription.

TABLE 1 OI Components and their use for Public OI, Private OI, User andListing OI Component Public OI Private OI User Listing Name X X X XScope X X X X Description ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Status ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Email ◯ ◯ X ◯ Password— — X — Payment Email — X X — Time Zone X X X X Primary Language X X X XExternal Scopes — — X — Intent X X ◯ X Thumbnail ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Rating Poll X XX X Forum X X X X Related OIs ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Related Users ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ RelatedListings ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Related Posts ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Related Polls ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ RelatedWebsites ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Related Pictures ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Related Videos ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ RelatedDocuments ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Related Audio ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ Legend: X—always, O—optional(i.e. user's choice), —does not apply.

TABLE 2 OI Behavior for Public OI, Private OI, User and Listing OIBehavior Public OI Private OI User Listing Name Unique among similarscopes Yes Yes No No Admin can be voted out by other users Yes No No NoCreation/Maintenance fee is charged No Yes No No Listing specific fee ischarged No No No Yes Can be sold to another user No Yes Yes NoChallenging scope (same name) Yes No No No Users can relate (associate)themselves Yes If allowed After No approved Admin controls what otherscan and cannot do No Yes Yes Yes Can be defined as a reference toanother OI No No No Yes Ability to reflect a characteristic inname/description Yes Yes Yes Yes

Ability to reflect a characteristic in name/description. For both Titleand Body there should be a way to display characteristics within thetitle/body by means of referencing. For example, a price of aproduct/service may be represented by a listing characteristic. When thelisting is prepared, a user should be able to indicate that he wants theprice to be presented in a certain place of a title or body. This way,when the listing or the title is displayed it accurately shows theprice. If a user changes the price of a listing, it is automaticallyadjusted when the listing is displayed—both in title and in full form.

Any OI component can be renamed by their admins/owners to moreaccurately describe their meaning. For example, ‘Description’ can bereplaced with ‘About Me’, or ‘What it's all about?’. ‘Forum’ can bereplaced with ‘Discussions’, or ‘Let's talk about it’. ‘Permissions’ canbe replaced with ‘Who can access’. ‘Reviews’ can be replaced with ‘Whatothers think about it’. And so on.

Displaying OIs, Users and Listings

Referring to FIG. 2, OIs are initially displayed in short form asThumbnail (of an optional picture), and name. A short form may bepresented in a rectangle whose dimensions are adjusted based on the sizeof the screen.

Various symbols are used throughout the application to visually presentvarious information. Font, color and other features may be presenteddifferently for Public OIs, Private OIs, Users, and Listings to avoidany confusion for the users.

Private OI Fees

Private OI Monthly Scope Fee (MSF) in US$ is calculated based on averagevalues of scope components. Every scope component is assigned a numberof points.

For a geographical area, the points S are equal to the size of an areain sq miles. For languages, the points are equal to the number oflanguages L.

For the age range, a single point is assigned to every age range(partial inclusion is prorated) for the following age ranges:0-3-5-8-11-14-17-21-25-30-35-40-50-60-70-90-120-1000. The combinedpoints for all covered age ranges represent age points A. For example,the range of 14-21 is assigned 2 points.

Gender points G are assigned as follows. 1 point is assigned to a singlegender, and 2 points are assigned to more than 1 gender.

The adjusted scope (which is fairer) is calculated as the multiplicationof the component points above. Adjusted scope=S*L*A*G

The final MSF is calculated using the following formula. MSF of lessthan $0.01 is assumed to be zero. MSF=3*[Ig(adjusted scope)−1.00]

Private OI Creation Fee (CF) equals MSF. CF=MSF

Private OI Monthly Content Fee (MCF) is charged in US$ based on averagemonthly space in Megabytes taken by all OI content excluding space forlistings. MCF of less than $0.01 is assumed to be zero. It is calculatedas follows: MCF=3*[Ig(space)−1.00]

Private OI Bandwidth Usage Fee (BUF) is charged in US$ based on monthlybandwidth usage in Megabytes excluding bandwidth for placing and viewingof listings. BUF of less than $0.01 is assumed to be zero. It iscalculated as follows: BUF=Ig(bandwidth)−3.00

Private OI total Monthly Fee (MF) is the sum of other monthlycomponents: MF=MSF+MCF+BUF

Private OIs with narrow scope (10 sq miles, 1 language, 1 age range, 1gender), with light content (less than 10 Mb), and moderate bandwidthusage (less than 1000 Mb per month) are absolutely free. An OI for atypical user falls into this category.

Moderately exceeding parameters above creates a small yet manageablefee. For example, for a slightly broader scope (20 sq miles, 1 language,2 age ranges, and 2 genders), content of 20 Mb, and bandwidth of 1500 Mbthe monthly fee comes to $3.78.

Even for a significant usage the monthly fee is reasonable. For example,for a large scope (10,000 sq miles, 3 language, 10 age ranges, and allgenders worth 2 points), content of 1000 Mb, and bandwidth of 10,000 Mbthe monthly fee comes to $21.33. The presented fee structure is only onepossible configuration to calculate fees in order to account for PrivateOI scope, data storage, and bandwidth usage. Other components may beintroduced into fee calculation logic.

OI Variations Examples

A public OI “Babylon Steakhouse” may have the following characteristics:the application assigned system characteristic ‘OI is Private’ is set to“No”. ‘Service Quality’ is set to “Excellent”. ‘Cuisine’ is set to“American”. ‘Average Price per Person’ is set to “$35.00”. Workinghours, busiest time, least crowded time, best dish, and othercharacteristics can be set in a similar way.

Listing Variations Examples

Referring to FIG. 3, Listings may include text and graphics, and a setof associated Characteristics, any of which may also be shown as part oftext and graphics. ‘Listing Intent’ is one common and mandatorycharacteristic. It may have values “Buy”, “Sell”, “Looking for”,“Offering something”, “Let others know”, etc.

For example, a pizzeria may place a listing offering a pizza for an OI“Pizza”. Characteristic ‘Listing Intent’ is set to “Sell”.Characteristic ‘Product/Service’ is set to “Product”. Characteristic‘Discount’ is set to 30% off. Characteristic ‘Offer Period’ is set to bea 4 hour window on a certain night. Characteristic ‘Will Deliver’ is setto “Yes”. Characteristic ‘Free Delivery’ is set to ‘Yes’. Characteristic‘Minimum Amount to Order’ is set to “110.00”.

For example, an individual may place a listing to sell a car for an OI“Cars”. Characteristic ‘Listing Intent’ is set to “Sell”. Characteristic‘Product/Service’ is set to “Product”. Characteristic ‘Vehicle Make’ isset to “Honda”, Characteristic ‘Vehicle Make Year’ is set to “2003”.Characteristic ‘Vehicle Condition’ is set to “Good”. Characteristic‘Vehicle Mileage’ is set to “85,000”. And so on, and so forth.

A wedding announcement listing example. Characteristic ‘Listing Intent’is set to “Let others know”. Characteristic ‘Event Type’ is set to“Wedding”. Characteristic ‘Date and Time’ is set to a specificdate/time. Characteristic ‘Broom’ is set to be the broom's name.Characteristic ‘Bride’ is set to be the bride's name.

Someone who wants to repair computers may place a listing.Characteristic ‘Listing Intent’ is set to “Sell”. Characteristic‘Product/Service’ is set to “Service”.

A person who is looking for a babysitter may place the following listingfor an OI “Babysitters”. ‘Listing Intent’ is “Buy”. ‘Hourly Pay’ is“$20.00”. Characteristic ‘Gender required’ is “Female”.

Note that there is no need to define a characteristic for geographicareas because they are part of the scope for every listing. However, acharacteristic may define a geographic area.

User Variations Examples

A user may, for example, indicate his favorite hobby by settingcharacteristic ‘Hobby’ to values “Fishing”, “Skiing”, “Hiking”,“Photography”.

Same Name OIs are Allowed for Different Scopes

Such model allows for multiple OIs with the same name. It is true that apublic OI admin is free to define a pretty wide scope. However, ifsomeone else wants to create an OI with noticeably smaller scope andthere is a conflict, the application will favor and give preference tosuch new OI. At this point, an admin of the OI with larger scope isforced to work it out with another admin of the new smaller OI—either asmaller OI should be dropped, or a bigger OI scope is reduced to avoidthe conflict. If the conflict is not resolved in a short period of timeand neither side is giving up, the application favors the new OI withthe smaller scope, and automatically reduces the scope of the bigger OIto resolve the scope conflict.

Private OI scope cannot be challenged, and can be as wide as the ownerwants it to be. This will be reflected in private OI monthly maintenancefee.

This mechanism will enforce a balanced approach throughout the OIuniverse. As a result, less popular OIs will end up having very fewduplicated names and each of them will have a pretty wide scope, whilepopular OIs will have numerous duplicate names, but each of them willhave a more narrow scope. What's important is that the number ofduplicate OIs and their scope will automatically balance itself outbased on popularity and people's interest.

For example, it is imaginable that an OI named “Skiing” will be greatlyduplicated, but it will be different for different languages, geographicareas, age groups and genders. This is beneficial for the followingreasons. It is only possible to communicate in the language a personknows. Because being in the same area makes it easier to get togetherwith people, and to learn local specificity. Because skiing will andshould be presented differently to kids, and to adults. Gender may ormay not play a role, but ultimately it is up to the users of theapplication to decide what would be the right scope for every OI.

In another example, if someone creates a public OI with the name “How tocolor a macaroni salad?” Probably very few people on the planet wouldcare about it. So, if such OI Admin sets up a wide scope for such OI, noone would object. As a result, such OI will stay with the wide scope.

User Registration

For an unregistered user, the application assumes geography equating tothe entire USA, English language, ages under 17, and genders M, F.User's name is empty. Any attempt to perform actions applicable toregistered users causes the application to prompt the user to register.Such actions include posting, replying, voting, saving information, etc.

Note that a user needs to register in order to set the age in the scopeabove 17. The age limit for unregistered users is designed to shieldchildren from adult content.

Social Networking

A user may be an OI. The users are free to associate themselves withpublic OIs and some private OIs. The users (e.g., those represented byan OI) are free to assign themselves any characteristics. OIs might onlyhave associated users with similar scopes. These factors create idealconditions for those users to socialize. Such social networking approachrelies on human commonalities between people. It is a more powerfulconcept than socializing only with a few existing friends.

It is worth pointing out that friends become friends based oncommonalities in the first place—speaking the same language, residing inthe same area (geography), being of similar age, and being of the samegender. Of course, there are deeper human factors involved, but theprecursor of friendship is the similarity of Scope—which creates idealconditions for making new friends.

Posting messages and exchanging ideas within the framework of a specificOI is a much more productive and stimulating process than what iscurrently present in social networking.

Of course, the functionality in this area is not limited thereto and canbe embodied in many different forms.

When a user associates himself with an OI, such user may opt to receiveemail (or SMS) notifications if any or specific OI associated contentchanges.

Clicking on a user's name allows to view the user's public profile,posts, listings, and other activity as permitted by such user as well assending an anonymous email—all of this set by the user in the userprofile.

Protecting Children from Adult Content

A child's age (or age range) is part of their user's scope. An adult OIscope will never match a child's scope. As a result, an OI with adultcontent will never be seen by a child when searching for OIs.

Even if a child attempts to view an adult OI using a direct link (e.g.received in the email) or accidentally types the word “porn” instead ofthe word “corn” when searching for OIs, the application still enforces amatch between the child's scope and an adult OI scope. If the scopes arenot similar, the adult OI is not shown.

An unregistered user's scope is automatically set to be under 17 (or adifferent age limit consistent with local laws). This also preventsviewing of adult OIs.

When an OI Admin/Owner defines an OI scope which includes the ages ofchildren, they have to enter a check mark on the screen indicating theirconsent to do their best to maintain the content suitable for children.

Geography Handling

An interactive map interface can be implemented using a respectiveservice/API from, for example, Google. It may be free for a small numberof daily requests assuming the application is also free to the users.There is a fee for commercial use. Requests to this API have a per daylimit, even for the most expensive options, and therefore thesuitability of this API needs to be reviewed for a long term solution.

When the user needs to define a geographic area (or a location), theapplication brings up an interactive map. The user may key in anygenerally acceptable geographic information such as an address, zipcode, town, state, metro area, country, region, etc. The applicationdisplays a corresponding map with the appropriate zoom level which theapplication can control via the API. The user may define a location onthe map by clicking in the appropriate place on the map. The user maydefine an area as a polygon by drawing a poly line via multiple clickson the map which ends where it started effectively forming a polygon.Once the polygon is identified, it is shaded with a partiallytransparent color of choice. In a similar fashion, the user may define alocation point, or a circle.

The user gives the area a name. Later on, whenever the user needs torefer to this area, it can be done by its respective name. Whenever theuser needs to view/edit the area, the same map with the shaded polygonis shown to the user enabling the user to edit the area.

The application captures the coordinates of the defined geographicarea/location. Whenever a search by a geographic area is performed inorder to find matching areas for a specified test area, every area isgeometrically compared to a test area. If the areas intersect (havecommon area), such area is included in search results.

A proprietary approach will be used to effectively and quickly findmatching geographic areas regardless of how many areas need to besearched. This will assure the application's satisfactory latency andperformance even for a significant number of OIs, Users, and Listingsmeasured in billions.

Managing OIs

Every OI is managed by a single Admin. When a user creates a public OI,he automatically becomes its Admin.

A public OI Admin is responsible for setting up and maintaining most OIProperties except Posts, Listings, Polls, and related Users. Admin isalso overseeing user supplied content such as posts, listings, andrelated users and has the right to remove objectionable content, andblock offending users. Admin is also reviewing incoming user feedback(emails), and reacts accordingly. Public OI Admin may be challenged byanother user as detailed below. When a user creates a private OI, suchuser automatically becomes its Admin, and has full control over the OI'sproperties and content. Other users can be limited by the Admin as towhether they can post and what content, reply to posts and with whatcontent, place listings, etc. An Admin of a private OI can beinterchangeably referred to as an OI Owner.

Ownership Transfer of Entire Private OI

An Owner of a private OI can sell the entire OI to another user for amutually agreed upon price. The application facilitates this process,and assesses a fee (e.g. 5% of the sale price) for the transfer ofownership. As soon as the transfer is complete, the application makesanother user an OI Admin.

Ownership Transfer of a Private OI Name Only

An Owner of a private OI can sell such OI's Name only, along with itsScope, but not the components (content) of such OI. It is sold toanother user for a mutually agreed upon price. The applicationfacilitates this process, and assesses a fee (e.g. 5% of the sale price)for the transfer of the name and its internal scope ownership. The OIName and its Internal Scope being transferred are assigned to thespecified buyer's Private OI, while at the same time the OI Name of theseller's OI is modified by the system to make it different (e.g. byadding a system generated number to the OI Name).

Polls

The functionality associated with polls is an important part of thisapplication. The application recognizes three types of polls: ApprovalPoll, Rating Poll, and a Free Form Poll.

Approval Polls might offer only two choices—Approve or Disapprove. Theresult of the poll is indicated as a percentage of approval. Forexample, if 100 people vote, and among them 80 people approve and 20people disapprove, the poll results in 80% approval.

Rating Poll offers to rate something on a certain scale (e.g. 0 to 10,or 1 to 5, etc). For example, if 100 people participate in a poll with20 people rating something as zero, while 80 people rating something as10, the overall rating comes to 8.0. In another example, if 20 peoplerate something with 10 people rating it as 6 while another 10 peoplerating it as 10, the overall rating is also 8.0.

A Free Form Poll offers two or more choices on anything.

An Approval Poll, Rating Poll, and a Free Form Poll with two choices areall similar in nature and their results can be compared despite theirseemingly different nature. For instance, the two poll examples aboveproduced identical results. e.g., approval of 80% is the same as therating of 8.0 on a scale of 0-10.

While voting, a user may optionally leave a voting comment of sufficientlength (e.g. up to 600 characters long) which supplements his vote.These comments (but not necessarily user names) can always be viewed byothers.

Privacy wise, polls could be of the following types: Privacy ForcedAnonymous, Privacy Forced Disclosure, and Privacy Flexible.

Privacy Forced Anonymous poll results never show user names. PrivacyForced Disclosure poll results always show user names, therefore thoseusers who want to stay anonymous should not participate in such polls.Privacy Flexible poll results let the voters decide whether their screennames are shown in the poll results. By default, a user's screen name isnot shown in voting results for Privacy Flexible polls.

Voting results can be viewed as a Voting Summary (a typical pollresults) or as Voting Details showing individual votes. Viewing VotingDetails allows to always view voting comments, and sort poll results bytime, user name, and user rating.

By default, a Voting Summary indicates results for the entire durationof the poll. However, a user should be able to view any Voting Summaryfor different durations such as the past day, week, month, year, or acustom range.

Users may change their votes at any time unless the poll is closed.

Every object of this application such as OI, User, and Listing isautomatically assigned a Rating Poll, Privacy Flexible. Every user ofthis application may cast their vote in such polls. Every user is ableto view such polls.

Graphically, a poll may be presented in a traditional multiple choiceselection, or as a simple “Like”/“Dislike” buttons, or thumbs up/downsymbols. Pressing the symbol may also pop a small prompt to explainvoting decision.

OI Related Discussion Forum

Discussion Forum is very similar to known discussion forums. Posts areused to discuss anything related to an OI. This will represent a singleforum (not multiple forums which is typical for various websites)because it is devoted to a single OI. Posts should look like yourtypical message board post—text, with the ability to change font, color,etc, embed a picture, video, provide a web link, etc.

An admin can select and save any post or poll in OI related content ifthey present a perceived value to the users.

Any user may start a Poll in a similar way and a post may be created.Privacy Flexible Polls only are created. The user defines Poll Title,the type of Poll, and the choices. There is no discussion associatedwith a poll. Whatever users want to say they are free to provide anoptional voting comment along with their vote.

Posts and Polls are shown within the same space, and are displayed inthe following order—most recent post/poll modified is shown first (atypical rule for a forum). A user is able to sort such results by otheravailable criteria, e.g. post/poll rating, time created, etc.

An OI admin may remove, edit, or replace an objectionable post/poll. Theremoved or original post/poll is not actually deleted, but rather getsmoved by the application to Removed/Modified Posts/Polls Area which canbe viewed by users. The purpose of such approach is to strike thebalance between administrative power of an OI Admin and regular users.On one hand, an admin may remove any post he feels is objectionable. Asa result, other user won't be able to see them within a forum. However,if users really want to, they may go to the removed posts area for thisOI, and still view removed posts. Removed posts area is not open to webcrawlers typically utilized by search engines such as Google, Yahoo!,and others.

If there is a justifiable need to permanently remove a post, an adminneeds to contact Oithis.

OI Related Selective Content

OI related selective content is presented separately for Related Posts,Polls, Websites, Pictures, Videos, Documents, Audio Files, etc. Theseare items manually selected in one way or another because of theircertain value. Note that Related Posts are similar to sticky posts in atypical forum.

Such subdivision is done primarily for the convenience of the users.Different types of content can be implemented in a very similar waybecause any type of content is presented as HTML created by an OI admin.

The application may offer a few useful templates defining the placementof pictures, text, etc., so the user can fill the necessary parts.

The application allows the creation of useful categories for selectivecontent in order to conveniently place it in one category or another.For example, a user may decide to have such categories as Skiing, WorkRelated, Vacation, etc. Such categories might not be searchable, butmight be presented when viewing an OI/User/Listing.

Payments

The application may facilitate the actual transfer of money between theusers themselves, and between the users and Oithis.

In order to avoid micro payments to Oithis for the placement oflistings, the application may require users to deposit a minimum amountof a few dollars into their Oithis money which can be used to pay forlistings. The unused funds are fully refundable minus the fee held byPayPal or a similar service. Listings cannot be submitted unless thereis enough money in Oithis account.

If a user wants to pay for a product/service, the money transfer is donedirectly to the seller through a commercial payment service like PayPal.

If a user needs to pay to Oithis a fee (e.g. for OI/Name transfer) it isdone directly through a commercial payment service like PayPal.

Such approach would allow the application to facilitate its commercialpart making it attractive to all users.

The system should always maintain two types of funds for eachuser—credits and money—with the rule that credits are always used firstwhen paying any type of service fees to Oithis. This would provide animportant mechanism to offer promotions, free service, credits,adjustments, etc, while at the same time maintaining the notion thatnothing is free and has to be paid for.

If implementing actual payments cannot be done, the application may workwith credits only. The users may temporarily replenish their credits forfree by simply pressing a respective button.

Listing

Listing is a way of presenting a relatively small amount of informationwith the purpose of being useful to other users while also benefitingthe submitter in one way or another. Listings are modeled after OIs.

An ad is a Preferred Choice Listing. The only difference is that an adis displayed up front in short form without any search.

When the user clicks on a Products/Listings link while viewing any OI onany page of the application, the user is presented withProducts/Listings page. A small number (e.g. one, two, or three) ads arebeing displayed in short form based on a few factors as explained below,followed by listing search fields, followed by a limited number oflistings in short form. The total number of displayed listings dependson the screen size, e.g. 5 for a small screen, and 20 for a largescreen, and so on.

Because it is not possible to predict the exact number of views, therewill never be a perfect match between the number of actual views and thenumber of ads to be displayed. The system tries to adjust the pricing ofads to achieve a perfect match and to have one ad for every view. If itturns out that there is excessive number of actual ads to display forthe estimated number of available views, the system will show up to 2 or3 ads at a time in order to provide views for all subscribed ads.

The system may also decide to show 2 or 3 ads at a time as a matter ofmore effective presentation. The same pool of ads will be shown on arotating basis.

A user may refine listing search criteria and look for specific listingsby Scope, Intent, Characteristics, and Title. No search can be done bythe words from the body of a listing. In other words, the text withinthe body of a listing is not searchable.

Since the number of listings can be unlimited, there arises an issue ofhow to aid users in finding the listings of higher quality. A simplething to do would be to display listings based on the ratings of theusers who submitted them along with the rating of individual listings ifavailable. This way, listings of lower rated users will be pushed at theend of any list of displayed listings, and in case of excessive numberof listings the users simply won't see the listings from low ratedusers.

Ads and listings are not displayed everywhere else ensuring an ad freeenvironment for users.

A listing or an ad can be submitted by any user, and associated with anypublic OI, or with a private OI if a user is authorized to do so. Theapplication charges for listings and ads regardless of whether they aresubmitted for a public or a private OI.

A private OI admin may opt to pay all listing/ad fees.

A user may re-list an expired listing, and optionally modify it whiledoing so. In such case, any statistics accumulated for such listingstays, including the listing approval rating.

Pricing of Listings and Ads

For every OI, the application allocates hourly time slots—which are theminimum quantum of listing/ad duration. For every time slot, theapplication estimates the number of views—this is the number of timesusers will view an ad or a listing. Such estimation is based onavailable historical data. This could be an average for a few pasthours, or for similar hours of the past days, or even same hours of theprevious week/day. For example, a certain hour of the future Fridaynight is presumed to have the same number of views as the same hour ofthe most recent Friday night. This is primitive, but simple andeffective estimation which can be improved in the future.

For the purpose of optimization, it is presumed that for each view ofproducts/services/listings page a user views the displayed ad in shortform, and views one listing in short form. The most optimal ratio for agiven time slot is to have as many ads, and as many listings as theestimated number of views.

Whether the users click on listings or not should not affect the pricingof any given listing. The application allows anyone to equally promotetheir listings, and therefore the charge for listings should not dependon the fact of clicking on the listing. The only reason a user wouldclick on the listing is because the content of the listing interestedthe user enough to prompt him to click, and therefore the credit forthis action goes to the submitter of the listing and not to theapplication.

The pricing model below relies on a few pricing adjustments worthmentioning in detail.

The Unsold Inventory Discount gives a significant discount to the firstbuyer while gradually removing the discount for follow up buyers so thatthe last buyer of the available inventory gets no discount at all. Thisdiscount represents the supply part of any market—as supply increases,the prices drop.

The Expiration Discount takes place when the sale inventory expires at acertain point in time. As the expiration time is far away, the discountis zero. However, as the expiration time nears, the discount growsreaching its maximum at the expiration point.

The Quantity Discount applies for somewhat unlimited sale inventory whenexcessive numbers of purchases occur. The discount is zero fornon-excessive purchases, but kicks in for excessive purchases, and getsdeeper for follow up purchases. As the number of purchases increases thediscount eventually stabilizes at a certain preset level.

The Oversold Inventory Premium applies when all available ad inventoryhas been sold. The premium is zero for all purchases within availableinventory, but after that, it kicks in and grows exponentially with nolimit. This premium represents the demand part of any market—as demandincreases, so do the prices.

The Popularity Premium applies to non-market driven pricing. It reflectsthe additional exposure a listing gets due to increase in the number ofviews a listing receives. The premium grows logarithmically based on thenumber of views, and may grow with no limits.

An ad or a listing is always submitted for a certain period of time. Thesystem calculates the price for every hour of such period. The sum ofhourly prices is the final price of an ad/listing for the entire period.

The Volume Discount applies to the final price of an ad/listing based onthe user's previous spending. This represents a typical discount forvolume buyers. It is zero for small volumes, then grows, and eventuallystabilizes around certain percentage (e.g. 20%).

Hourly Pricing for Ads is done as follows. The base price of an hourlyslot and the number of future views for ads is estimated based onavailable most recent historical data for ads—same hour of the mostrecent day, same hour of the previous week/day, the weighted combinationof both, or the average for the same hour for the past few days. Then,the base price is adjusted using the Unsold Inventory discount, theExpiration Discount, and the Oversold Inventory Premium. Estimated viewsis the available inventory, and the beginning of the hourly time slot isthe expiration point.

Hourly Pricing for Listings is done as follows. The number of futureviews for listings is estimated based on the historical data forlistings—similar to how it's done for ads. The base price of a time slotfor a listing is fixed—it is global, although it could be different fordifferent geographical regions. Then, the base price is adjusted usingthe Popularity Premium, the Unsold Inventory Discount, and the QuantityDiscount.

The application should adjust prices gradually—not too fast (to avoiderratic pricing which would confuse users and may push them away), andnot too slow (to adequately react to changing circumstances). Theproposed pricing seems like a good first iteration. Alternatively, thesystem may utilize a commonly practiced ad bidding model.

Pricing of ads may fit into a supply-demand model. As a result, theprice for ads will truly be driven by the market, and may becomerelatively cheap or relatively expensive depending on market conditions.On the other hand, there could be unlimited number of listings for agiven number of available views. The base price of a listing for a timeslot is fixed—this is an arbitrary number set by Oithis.

For ads only, if the number of views purchased greatly exceeds thenumber of estimated views, the application may display 2 or 3 ads atonce instead of one.

For every listing and every ad, the application also may slightlyincrease the final listing/ad price based on the amount of storage andprojected bandwidth usage such listing or ad may incur. The storage isused for the listing/ad HTML text, images, videos, documents, etc. Theestimated bandwidth is calculated based on estimated number of views. Tobe fair, this additional surcharge should not depend on market drivenindicators, but should relate to storage and bandwidth demands only.

Historical data is also used to aid the users in their decision makingwhen placing listings/ads. This includes metrics showing a breakdown ofnumber of views for a given OI including the estimated number of viewsfor the specified duration. This also includes showing the actualsearches done by various users for a given OI—such information can givea clue as to what those users are looking for (side point: users doingsearches need to be informed that their searches—without any useridentifying information—may be viewed by other users who are doingresearch prior to placing listings/ads).

While any given listing/ad is active as well as after they expire, userswho placed them should be able to view related metrics in order toadjust their future actions. These should include the actual number ofviews, the number of clicks, the prices paid, purchase amounts, etc.

Automatic Removal of Low Quality OIs

OI ratings are reviewed by the application on a monthly basis. An OIRating Poll is considered meaningful if at least a certain number (e.g.,1%) of users who viewed an OI participated in OI Rating Poll, and if thepoll has at least a certain number votes (e.g., 10). A Public OI whoserating is meaningful and stays at the level of below 3.0, for example,for at least a month becomes subject to a gradual termination processwhich only stops if such OI rating goes to 3.0 or above during any 7days period. Such process takes 60 days during which time an OI becomesdisabled and inaccessible periodically with progressively increasedintervals. On the first day of such period, an OI is disabled for 1 minevery hour, on the next day—for 2 min every hour, etc. until it iscompletely disabled after 60 days. While an OI is disabled, acorresponding explanation is displayed instead of normally shown OIview. After 60 days, an OI is removed from the system.

Challenging OI Admin

A user may challenge a public OI admin. Only a user who satisfies thefollowing requirements is allowed to do so. Has to be registered for atleast 30 days. Has at least 90% approval rating from at least 10 otherusers.

The application allows only one challenge at a time. A new challenge maynot start during the 7 day period following the end of the previouschallenge for the same OI Admin position.

Once a user initiates a challenge, the application automatically createsa new Post along with Approval Poll for the challenger. The challengermust supply his point of view in the post. All users who viewed this OIat least once during the period which ended 7 days prior to the start ofthis challenge are automatically notified. They are invited to vote andexpress their opinion.

After 7 days, the application checks the poll results. If at least 10users or at least 25% of notified users (whichever is greater) voted,and the challenger's approval reaches at least 67%, he automaticallybecomes the new Admin.

If the former admin disagrees, the only choice is to challenge the newlyelected admin.

Challenging a Public OI's Scope

When a new public OI is created, it may have exactly the same name asthe names of other public OIs—so long as their internal scopes do notintersect. However, if their internal scopes do intersect (e.g., the OIsshare one or more similarities), the new OI admin has two choices. Theinternal scope of the new OI can be changed to avoid the conflict. Thenew OI admin may challenge all conflicting OIs and request from theiradmins to reduce their internal scopes to accommodate the new OI withthe same name. The challenge is only allowed if the new OI's internalscope is at least 50% less than the smallest conflicting OI's internalscope.

In the latter case, the application notifies all conflicting OI adminsof the challenge. Then follows a 7 day resolution period during whichconflicting OI admins have a chance to work things out. During thisperiod, any OI admin is free to adjust the internal scopes of their OIsto resolve the conflict. If by the end of the resolution period theconflict is not resolved, the system automatically reduces the internalscopes of other conflicting OIs in order to resolve the conflict.

During the resolution period, the new OI admin has to select anon-conflicting internal scope for the new OI.

Ratings and Rewards

The application assigns a privacy flexible approval poll to every OI, toevery user, and to every listing throughout the system. Any user is freeto cast their vote as they see fit. Restrictions may be imposed toprevent abuse. Such approval ratings can be viewed throughout theapplication for every OI, every user, and every listing. When displayinga list which consists of OIs, users, or listings, the application showsthe higher rated items first. At the least, the users should be able tosort the displayed items by their ratings.

When a user casts the vote of approval to another user he can optionallyreward the other user by paying a small amount to such user (e.g.,anywhere between about $0.01-$0.05). The payment is drawn from theuser's credits first, and if there are no credits left, than it is drawnfrom the user's money balance. The deposit is always made to the otheruser's credits.

Searching for OIs, Users and Listings

This has to be presented via an intuitive behavior. The user should beable to filter out screen views by the criteria below.

Search Scope. It defaults to the user's scope if the user did notprovide an active external scope.

OI Name. These are words which should match words in OI name in anyorder. The matching is not case sensitive. Every search word can bepartial—the end of the word can be truncated. E.g. “cam digi” shouldmatch an OI name “Digital Cameras”. If omitted, any OI Name is a match.

OI Characteristics. A user should be able to search and findcharacteristics among those which match the Search Scope, and specifyone or more such characteristics which should match the resultant OIcharacteristic. A user should be able to exclude items based on certaincharacteristics.

Rating. Specify to only show OIs of the specified rating or above.

Intent. Users may select User Intents—i.e., what the user is lookingfor—which is the opposite of OI's intent, and display those instead ofOI's intents, or display both at the same time to avoid confusion. Forexample, if the user's intent is to Buy something, the user is lookingfor a listing offering to Sell something. An intent Trade isunidirectional in this respect.

Listing Title. These are words which should match words in Listing titlein any order. The matching is not case sensitive. Every search word canbe partial—the end of the word can be truncated. E.g. “cam digi” shouldmatch a listing title “Digital Cameras”. If omitted, any listing titlewould be a match.

Search Scope

The general approach may be that users assign themselves narrow scopes,while other OIs and Listings may be assigned wide scopes. As a result,when searching for OIs and Listings, there is no need for users tocreate an extra “search” scope.

However, if looking for other users, the search scope needs to be aswide as necessary.

Following OIs and Users

A user may choose to follow any OI, and specifically any OI relatedcomponent. When OI related information changes, the user is notified(e.g. via an email and/or SMS). A user may elect the minimum timeinterval between such notifications to avoid frequent notifications.

A user may choose to follow any other user in respect to any non-privateactivity of such user, and even for a specific activity such as making apost, replying to a post, placing a listing, voting (except privatevotes), creating an OI, etc. When such non-private activity is detected,the user is notified (e.g. via an email and/or SMS). A user may electthe minimum time interval between such notifications to avoid frequentnotifications.

Web Links to OIs, Listings, Polls, and Users

There may be an easy way to provide links to OIs in the formwww.oithis.com/<OI Name>/<Optional Details>. Spaces need not be imposedin OI name. For example, when entering the following string with spacesinto an Internet browser address window: “www.oithis.com/sample ofname”. The browser automatically replaces spaces with its hexadecimalencoding as follows: “http://www.oithis.com/sample%20oi%20name”.

The problem is that supplying an OI name only is not enough to identifyan OI. In general the application needs to know whether an OI is publicor private, and what is the scope. The application may show both publicand private names if both exist. As to the scope, the application mayassume geographical location and language based on IP address, any age,and all genders. Alternatively, the system may allow to provide OptionalDetails in order to narrow down and identify a specific OI (e.g. aunique global OI Identification, or a unique OI sequence number within agroup of OIs with the same name).

Links to specific listings, polls, users, and selected content arepresented as traditional web links.

‘OI-This’ Buttons and Other Link Backs

There should be a way to provide buttons to third parties so that webcontent could be linked back to a certain OI. For example, a user who islooking for cameras is browsing a third party website, and notices thatsuch website provides detailed and useful information in how to choose acamera. The user wants to add this website to ‘Related Websites’ for anOI he frequents. Assuming the owner of a third party website implementedsuch link back button, the user can press on it, and in a few stepssubmit a request to an OI Admin to add this website to ‘RelatedWebsites’.

More particularly, referring to FIG. 4, according to an exemplaryembodiment of the present disclosure, a computer system 501 for datastructure organization and searching using basic atomic units ofinformation can comprise, inter alia, a central processing unit (CPU)502, a memory 503 and an input/output (I/O) interface 504. The computersystem 501 is generally coupled through the I/O interface 504 to adisplay 505 and various input devices 506 such as a mouse and keyboard.The support circuits can include circuits such as cache, power supplies,clock circuits, and a communications bus. The memory 503 can includerandom access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), disk drive, tapedrive, etc., or a combination thereof The present invention can beimplemented as a routine 507 stored in memory 503 (e.g., anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium) and executed by the CPU502 to process the signal from the signal source 508. As such, thecomputer system 501 is a general-purpose computer system that becomes aspecific purpose computer system when executing the routine 507 of thepresent invention.

The computer platform 501 also includes an operating system andmicro-instruction code. The various processes and functions describedherein may either be part of the micro-instruction code or part of theapplication program (or a combination thereof) which is executed via theoperating system. In addition, various other peripheral devices may beconnected to the computer platform such as an additional data storagedevice and a printing device.

The foregoing and with reference to the tables, figures and drawings,those skilled in the art will appreciate that certain modifications canalso be made to the present disclosure without departing from the scopeof the same. Therefore, the above description should not be construed aslimiting, but merely as exemplifications of particular embodiments ofthe present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method for organizing datausing basic atomic units of information, the method comprising:providing a plurality of objects of interest (OIs), wherein an object ofinterest (OI) of the plurality of OIs comprises an OI name and an OIdescription, wherein the OI comprises an OI scope comprising a firstgeographic area, and wherein the OI scope defines a relevant audiencefor the OI; searching for at least one OI by defining a search scopeincluding a second geographic area; identifying at least one OI havingoverlapping first and second geographic areas; generating a second OIhaving a second OI name that is substantially identical to a first OIname of an OI of the plurality of OIs provided, wherein the second OIhas a second OI scope comprising a third geographic area at leastpartially overlapping the first geographic area, wherein the thirdgeographic area is smaller than the first geographic area; and reducinga size of the first geographic area to eliminate overlapping between thefirst geographic area and the third geographic area.
 2. Thecomputer-implemented method for organizing data using basic atomic unitsof information of claim 1, wherein the OI name includes 120 charactersor less.
 3. The computer-implemented method for organizing data usingbasic atomic units of information of claim 1, wherein the OI is aperson.
 4. The computer-implemented method for organizing data usingbasic atomic units of information of claim 1, wherein thecharacteristics include a numerical value or a numerical range.
 5. Thecomputer-implemented method for organizing data using basic atomic unitsof information of claim 1, wherein the first or second geographic areasare defined by drawing a polygon.
 6. The computer-implemented method fororganizing data using basic atomic units of information of claim 1,further comprising creating listings for goods or services associatedwith the OI, wherein the listings are visible to the plurality of users.7. The computer-implemented method for organizing data using basicatomic units of information of claim 1, wherein the plurality of OIs aredivided into public OIs and Private OIs.
 8. The computer-implementedmethod for organizing data using basic atomic units of information ofclaim 1, further comprising applying system characteristics andnon-system characteristics to the OI, wherein the system characteristicsare assigned by the system and are not visible to users, and thenon-system characteristics are visible to users.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method for organizing data using basic atomic unitsof information of claim 1, wherein the OI comprises posts, polls,websites, pictures, videos, audio or documents.
 10. Thecomputer-implemented method for organizing data using basic atomic unitsof information of claim 1, wherein the OI comprises description,reviews, forum, related OIs, listings or users.